Brewmate. It’s free.
Then I’ve cloud backup software in case my pc crashes and i loose my harddrive.
[quote=“brewingdan”]Excel spreadsheet dating back to 2005. Pretty cool to scroll around and find trends and patterns about myself.
Why every freaking November I’ve brewed a Mild ale??[/quote]
It is cool to look back and see trends like that. For me it’s a Scottish ale every fall.
I use ProMash for developing and tracking recipes, and spreadsheets with notes on water chemistry, efficiency numbers and brewing trends. Not particularly well organized, but works well enough for me.
Well I’m kind a computer nerd. I have my own Confluence
space for brewing. I created templates for recipes, to which I attach PDF’s of The NB or Beersmith recipe. It even cross-references to which strains of yeast work in the recipe. Under each recipe there’s a template for each time I brew that recipe where I note mash/sparge volumes and temperatures. On each brew page there’s a form where I enter the raw gravity and sample temps, and it spits out the calibrated OG/FG as well as ABV and Calories per bottle (The wife cares 
)
Hi Mullerbrau,
This may be a silly question, on the EZbrew format what is Fermentation Task Lose and why does the number here effect my potential gravity?
thanks
I have no idea. The spreadsheet was written by two other gentlemen and their contact information is listed within the spreadsheet if I remember correctly.
I have mine on Brewers friend but I also write them out on my brew day note book which is a spiral bound pad. I keep fermentation notes on index card attatced to the fermenter which helps me keep track of what’s in which fermenter since I usually have at least two going at once. My daughter gave me a beautiful leather bound Brewers journal that I will use to transcribe my favorite recipes in hopes they can be passed on. Might be fun for someone to find and brew great grand pappys favorite beer recipes
That’s me too. I also have a few different spreadsheets I use, as well as Promash recipe files. I feel a little dumb for having info distributed across all these places, but I’ve never had a problem finding what I need.
thanks
I’ve been keeping detailed notes in one of those black and white marble composition notebooks with the sewn in pages so they won’t fall out. Keeping detailed notes cannot be emphasized enough. Just the other day, I took an SG of a porter I’m working on. It was 1.020 after 2 weeks in primary. I thought that was high until I looked back in my notes to the last time I brewed this beer. Sure enough, that’s what the SG reading was at that point in the first batch too. Considering that beer was one of my favorites, I was reassured that I was on the right track with this one. So write EVERYTHING down. You never know how even a small detail could be useful later on.
Every time, I go back to my notes, no matter how detailed I thought I was being at the time, I wish I had logged more. No detail is too small.
One recommendation I have, (and it’s the one I most often kick myself for forgetting) is I want to log detailed tasting notes on at least the first and last bottles in each batch, and preferably once or twice in the middle. I come up with an opinion without looking at the previous review, then I read the previous taste notes to form an opinion on how the beer evolved as it aged. When I do it, it’s been helpful in figuring tweaks to recipies.
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A long time ago I made a simple “brew log” in MS Word (might have even been Write back then) and print one out whenever I brew. The exception is if I’m doing one over, unless there is some change, I don’t bother with a duplicate with a different date.
I have a complicated file system. Put them in a grocery store bag and dig to find one I’m looking for.
Honestly for recipes I have done for years, I don’t bother to write anything down.
I rarely keep detailed notes. I really only keep recipes and water additions via beersmith. The way I figure it is that I rarely brew the same recipe twice and even then they are months to a year apart. If I was brewing the same recipe more often and/or back to back I would likely keep detailed notes.
